Come watch, listen and experience the wild mysteries of Sable Island presented at the Canadian Music Centre (CMC), with Nova Scotia's acclaimed Composer/Guitarist Scott Macmillan. Macmillan will take you on a journey to Canada’s newest National Park Reserve, Sable Island.

This hour-long presentation will feature the stunning pictorial slide show of the full 24-minute composition, Currents of Sable Island by photographer Damian Lidgard, and a performance by Macmillan of his Currently Sable for solo guitar.

There will be light refreshments.

*The Canadian Music Centre is an accessible venue through a street level entrance to the right of the main entrance. The CMC has gender neutral washrooms.

Currents of Sable Island, was winner of the 2017 East Coast Music Award Classical Composition of the Year and tied for 2017 Music Nova Scotia Classical Recording of the Year. Halifax poet Jill MacLean’s evocative poem Sable Island 44°N 60°W imposes shape and sequence upon Macmillan’s exuberant imagination, making Currents one of his best works. Macmillan’s original musical imagery complemented the word paintings of wind and wave, shifting sands and wild grass, and her theme of mortality and change imagined in a mare sniffing her dead foal, which is already becoming part of a new dune.

Macmillan’s choice of colours with horn and harp, whistles and strings and his own playing of acoustic guitar, with percussion lightly and delicately balancing cymbal and rain-drum, creates an ambiance of sonorities to cushion the words, over and within which soprano soloist Laurel Browne’s voice soared like a windswept gull triangulating sand, shore and sea-surge. Sable Island gradually emerged, as vivid and biting as the taste of saltwater blown across the lips.”

Who is Scott Macmillan?

Nova Scotia born Scott Macmillan has a passion for music driven by his need to be creative. In 2014 he received the Portia White Prize, Nova Scotia’s top Artist Prize. A musical treasure, Macmillan has played a significant role expanding audiences for Atlantic Canadian music both nationally and internationally for over 40 years.

A long standing associate composer with the Canadian Music Centre, music has taken him to many places: Carnegie Hall in New York twice, as well to the British Isles, Germany, the US and crisscrossing Canada many times. His beloved collaboration with librettist Jennyfer Brickenden, his ode to our world’s oceans, “Celtic Mass for the Sea” celebrates 30 years in 2018 having been performed internationally numerous times since its premiere.

In 2017 Scott garnered two East Coast Music Awards; Traditional Instrumental Recording ‘GOOD2GO’, a duo recording with Cape Breton fiddler, Colin Grant as well as Classical Composition of the Year, for Currents of Sable Island, composed for solo voice and chamber ensemble. Currents of Sable Island also tied for Classical Recording of the Year at the 2017 Music Nova Scotia Awards. Scott and Colin garnered 2017 Group Ensemble of the Year at the Canadian Folk Music Awards.

Since 2018 Scott also began mentoring a new generation of guitarists at the Fountain School of Performing Arts, Dalhousie University.

Who is Damian Lidgard?

Damian Lidgard’s interest in photography began in 1990. His skill developed through practice and his enjoyment of nature. In 2004 Damian immigrated to Canada to continue his work as a research zoologist. At the same time his photographic style began to evolve away from the camera and toward seeing, and was nurtured through his interest in the Buddhist art form Miksang, a contemplative practice in photography. He believes a good photograph comes from the eye and not the camera. Damian is now based in Halifax, NS where he combines his work as a research zoologist, sommelier and photographer. His photography work on Sable Island has been published in several international magazines and more recently in a book.